


Words From Red Horsemen

by cantonforking



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asexual Relationship, Asexual Sherlock, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:08:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantonforking/pseuds/cantonforking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>'For John his world ends with a sickening crunch and a conversation that cuts into a dial tone.'</i> There is so little left in the aftermath of The Fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words From Red Horsemen

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** slight suicide trigger, mentions of violence, spoilers up to the end of season 2 and imagery vomit  
>  **A/N:** This is what I write at 2.00am on my ipod lying in bed. Directly follows The Reichbach Fall.

_Goodbye John_

__When your world ends you expect a fanfare. You expect a man in odd dress will come to tell you the news, or an implosion or explosion, something so that you can be certain of the end. You expect it in a split second, you expect it to be unexpected, a confusing story where nothing makes sense.

It’s not like that. For John his world ends with a sickening crunch and a conversation that cuts into a dial tone. It ends with his friend, his Sherlock, lying in a puddle of blood and there is nothing an army doctor can do to fix this.

This is the end of the world and it _is_ sudden and it _is_ in a split second but it makes perfect sense. Sherlock reaches out and John reaches back, eyes on the martyr on the roof. This is the end of the world but no one is dead except the best man he ever knew.

Mrs. Hudson was fine, not a blemish, not a bullet hole, not dead. It was Sherlock, secret and mysterious as ever, who was caught in Moriarty’s web and John didn’t save him. After all this time, all the guns he has pointed and triggers he has pulled, John couldn’t save his best friend.

_I’m sorry._

__This isn’t the first time he has felt this absence, this empty loss. He’s a soldier, a doctor. Death has been his constant companion. His hand has rested on the polished wood of too many coffins. His fingers have chased fading pulses to the end of too many people to remember, however hard he tries. So no, the pale horseman is no more a stranger to him than the red.

And yet, nothing has hurt like this. Not the searing pain of hot metal biting into his shoulder nor the pity glances for the war veteran. John is not a soft man, that much could be obvious to anyone, but this is what brings hot tears to his eyes. He will never let them fall though; never give in, never let Moriarty win.

Instead he lets belief embed itself as deeply in his mind as he can bring it. He lets himself place trust he never knew he had in the chalk outline memory of the best man he ever knew. Moriaty is real. Believe in Sherlock. It becomes a personal prayer, as constant in his life as the soothing shadow of Mrs. Hudson and her motherly smiles.

_I should have known you would still believe. You never did see the evidence._

_  
_

 

John ducks his head under the water and holds it there, oxygen running out like a ticking clock. He’s not trying to kill himself, not really. It’s just a momentary wondering, a stray thought that has slipped inside his head and latched on so that he must know the answer. If he’s about to die, will Sherlock save him?

When the cry for air has become a beat line in his temple, John throws himself from the water, flopping back on the floor. As soon as the oxygen floods back to his head, woozy and waterlogged, he can excuse those wonderings as a moment of insanity, nothing else. Sherlock is gone. He knows that.

_Stop it John. Be reasonable for once._

__He knows that he is alone, another bachelor in an empty house. 221B Baker Street. He couldn’t return at first, couldn’t see the skull on the mantelpiece or the body parts in the fridge. Now he won’t leave.

It’s hard, it’s so hard. Some days he doesn’t think he can stay there any longer but he tells himself Sherlock will want the apartment when he comes backs. 221B Baker Street. It’s as much a part of the brilliant detective as his heavy coat or his winding scarf or that confounded hat or his insufferable arrogance or his loyal blogger. His Doctor John Watson.

Sherlock will want the apartment. That’s what John tells himself when he stumbles out of bed in the mornings and calls his friend’s name before he remembers sticky pools of blood on the pavement.

_There’s a new consulting criminal apparently. He’s not very good but neither are you really._

_  
_

 

The rest of life is so much harder too. It’s not the motivation to do things, that’s not the problem. It’s finding something to do. Sherlock has snuck in and made a home with John, pulled and prodded until their two lives are one. Now the detective has gone and the doctor has nothing left. The blog of Dr. John H. Watson has run silent, ‘he was my best friend and I’ll always believe in him’ is frozen at the top.

In time he finds a job working at a medical centre. It’s dull routine, fake smile and practised sympathy. It’s not that he dislikes the job, he loves to help where he can, but is he broken now? Is he still able to help? Memories of a gun pointed through window panes, a study in pink, come as easily as the fall. In one John saves and in the other he loses it all.

_A medical clinic? How boring._

_  
_

 

Their friends linger with John, friends that he has made with Sherlock at his side. Lestrade calls and talks about the weather. Molly comes to the apartment with secrets that hide in her sad eyes. Every so often a black car will pull up and Mycroft has another apology to make or explanation to give or he just wants to talk about the weather. John even gets a text one day: _I’m sorry – TW_

 __He deletes it as soon as he gets it, tries not to wonder how she got his number because in the end it doesn’t matter. She is just another part of history that he wants to forget.

_I ate with The Woman today. She almost stole my wallet._

_  
_

 

With winter drawing her dark cloak around the world, he comes home in the dark most days. John likes it that way, most nights choosing not to turn on the lights. It’s easier in the dark.

_He’s getting close. I’ll see you tonight._

__One night when he is doing just that, hiding in the night, he hears it. At first he writes the sound off as a car on the road or as a neighbour moving around. It sounds again, like a drill or an engine or something vibrating.

It doesn’t take him long to trace the sound, following it to a door and then he stops. A fine layer of dust has created a line in front of this door, untouched for months. John doesn’t go in there, no one does. The sound comes again, short and barely noticeable really, a shadow in the evening. He puts a hand on the door knob and he can almost see the tiny flecks of disturbed dust falling to the floor.

Inside it is like a time capsule that has been opened too soon. Sherlock could be here, asleep on the bed or pacing around the room.

The sound comes again, from under the bed or thereabouts. John doesn’t hesitate before dropping to his knees and ducking down. There is a phone directly under that place where Sherlock once laid his head. It’s skin is pink. As John stares at it, hunched over like a monster in the darkness, the screen lights up and it vibrates a tune against the floor.

He doesn’t bother dancing on any elaborate suspicion, just reaches out and closes his fingers around the digital lifeline. The screen tells him there are 54 new messages from ‘unknown’. His hand is shaky when he unlocks the device and the words pop up on screen.

_Finally you found it._

___Hotter._

 ___Warmer, much better John._

 ___You’re freezing. Even Anderson could do better._

 ___Well don’t just stand there._

 ___Welcome home. Find the phone._

 __There are hundreds of them, lining the screen in neat text, trivial conversations and here and there comments on things John can remember. It’s months of solitude suddenly shared by two. Another text comes in then, the vibration making him jump.

_23 Brewer’s Road. Come if convenient._

__A pause, then vibration again.

_If inconvenient, come anyway._

__The doctor is pulling his coat from the peg three seconds later. Outside the world is muffled in cold clothes and steam voices. A cab pulls to a halt as John lifts his hand. It takes him a moment to choke out the address. Street lamps and all the lights of London glint across the window pane and John finds himself counting the seconds. It’s an old war trick he discovered. Counting the seconds to know you’re still alive.

When they finally stop, John’s hand is hurting from how hard he is clenching the phone in his fist. Without bothering to look, he hands the cabbie a wad of cash and tells him to keep the change. The man nods and lifts his hat an inch but John doesn’t have the time to return the nod or smile or even look.

Outside the cab it is colder than he remembers but his body feels strangely hot, sweat creeping along his back. 23 Brewer’s Road is a run-down looking building, most likely council-owned apartments or something like that. John lets his eyes search for some tiny detail, some Sherlock clue.

There is nothing in the peeling paint or the cracked wood. It’s just a house like so many others. He is still staring when the phone in his hand vibrates and he almost drops it in surprise. There is a new text from an unknown number.

_Hello John._

__“Hello John.” A voice behind him reads the words on screen and it is then that he realises that the cab hasn’t left. He turns slowly, breath catching in his throat like the sting of a sudden chill. There is a shadow standing behind him, lit up like a ghost against the London street lamps.

John steps forward and wraps his arms around the ghost. This man, this shadow, he is warm and solid, as real as Moriarty and all his games. After a moment arms come up and circle around his back, warm and certain, not bruised and broken. A car passes, the headlamps blinding John so he lets his eyes fall shut.

“Hello Sherlock.”


End file.
